Guide to Carpet Cleaning Equipment

Portable carpet extractors

A portable carpet cleaning equipment unit rolls on wheels and contains internal tanks for clean hot water, dirty recovered water and detergent, plus pumps and a vacuum motor. The operator moves a vacuum-cleaner style wand across the carpet or, for heavier jobs, a head with rotating brushes.

I recommend: See a selection of portable carpet extractors at Jon-Don or J.C. Carpet & Service Products or check carpet cleaning machine makers Hydramaster and Prochem.  For a lightweight carpet cleaning machine with a rotating head, see Rotovac.

Truck-mount carpet cleaning equipment

Built for large commercial jobs, truck mount carpet cleaners are powerful enough to bring high pressure hot water and vacuum through hundreds of feet of hose run from a parked van to one or two wand operators inside. These big carpet cleaning machines come in two configurations: Slide-in models run on their own engines and can be moved from van to van while van-powered models are built in, running off a drive shaft belted to the van engine and piped into the van's coolant system.

I recommend: Get a run-down of the pro's and con's of the two types of truck-mount carpet cleaning at Hydramaster.  Compare carpet cleaning truck-mount packages at Cleanco, Steamway, Prochem, Hydramaster and Rotovac.  Find used truck-mount carpet cleaning equipment for sale at Kleen Kuip Supply Mart.

Carpet cleaning detergents and other liquids

Professional carpet cleaners apply a wide range of carpet cleaning liquids as pre-sprays, detergents, spot-removers and deodorants, in different formulations for synthetic or wool carpeting, and for different types of dirt, spills or chewing gum entanglements. As customers increasingly demand green products, the industry has come up with environmentally friendly solutions for cleaning carpet, too.

I recommend: Prochem and Hydramaster carry their own lines of chemicals for carpet cleaning machines.  Also try Fabpro and Chemspec and, for green products, Organic Compounds.